1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology of supporting a user in mechanically analyzing the performance of an object, using an input device, a display device having a screen for display, and a computer connected to the input device and the display device.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
There have existed some practical technologies of supporting a user in mechanically analyzing the performance of an object, using a computer. In a process of developing an automobile as one example of the object, the practical technologies have been employed to support in designing the automobile, for example.
It has been general that two divisions are mainly involved in automotive development. One is a design division where design of an automobile is performed, the other is an evaluation division where evaluation of the performance of the designed automobile is performed.
As shown in FIG. 38, the process of developing an automobile is initiated with a concept designing and a detailed designing of parts or components of the automobile in the aforementioned design division, wherein the detailed designing follows the concept designing. Then, the performance of the automobile to be manufactured according to a design draft made in the aforementioned developing process is evaluated by using a prototype made according to the design draft, or by executing analysis according to a numerical approach such as Finite Element Method, FEM, wherein the analysis may be categorized into Computer Aided Engineering, CAE, for example.
The evaluation results obtained in the above-mentioned evaluation division are informed to the above-mentioned design division. When the evaluation results demonstrate that the present design draft would lead to unsatisfactory performance of the automobile, design change for the automobile is performed in the design division on the basis of the evaluation results. After this design change, the performance of the automobile is again evaluated in the evaluation division with respect to a new design draft of the automobile made in the design division.
Where the new evaluation results demonstrate again that the present design draft would lead to unsatisfactory performance of the automobile, another design change is made in the design division. Instead, where the new evaluation results demonstrate that the present design draft would lead to satisfactory performance of the automobile, the designing and evaluating process for the automobile is terminated, followed by construction of the automobile.
Conventionally, development of analyzing technologies has been oriented to improvement in analyzing accuracy, improvement in availability to kinds of objects to be analyzed, and so on. Consequently, in the process of developing an automobile, for example, it has become capable of quantitatively estimating the performance of a whole automobile realizing a design draft to some extent, without using a prototype realizing the design draft.
However, on the other hand, the conventional analyzing technologies have been greatly advanced in terms of their sophistication and diversity of function, so as to require high-level expertise for utilizing those technologies. It follows that those technologies are available only to professional analyzers. For this reason, in a conventional automobile development process, for example, professional analyzers perform analysis of the performance of an automobile after the completion of the above-mentioned detailed designing, such that the analysis serves as an alternative of experimental evaluation mainly using a prototype of the automobile to be evaluated.
Thus, the analysis is performed after the completion of the detailed designing. However, at the time of the completion of the detailed designing, a fundamental policy, namely, a framework of a design of an automobile has been almost fixed. Therefore, it is difficult to make an innovative design change in the light of the results from the analysis, due to the limitation on a man-hour which is for planned for designing. That is, it is a fact that, in the conventional automobile development process, an analysis which is originally intended to support in designing, although it can support in performing experimental evaluation, fails to directly support in designing.
In other words, the conventional analyzing technologies have placed stress on analyzing accuracy and versatility, not on easiness to use those technologies.